melmer

Project Godus: Don't believe his lies

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Ooh, this is an interesting topic. I'll share a few weird loopholes that I'm familiar with.

Magic: The Gathering has online tournaments meant to mirror the real life tournaments. However, they can't hand out cash prizes because that would be online gambling. So instead the winner of an online tournament earns an invite to a special exclusive side-event at the next physical tournament they attend. This side-event is a single match between two people, the last two online tournament winners. First place gets one thousand dollars and 24 packs of cards (value: approximately $3 each), and second place gets... one thousand dollars and 12 packs.

 

US law has a blind spot regarding games that are not technically random. Theoretically, you could bet on an online version of Rock-Paper-Scissors and it would be allowed because the choices of the other player, while inscrutable, are not random in the same way a deck of cards is random. This is the principle that's allowed Jason Rohrer to make Cordial Minuet actually work.

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Small towns, bars and whatnot will sometimes hold chicken or cow shit raffles to avoid the law that says only charities can hold raffles (I don't know if that's everywhere in the US or just here). Basically what you do is mark out a grid space on a field or pen, number each grid space and sell each space for $5-15 or so. Then you put a cow or chicken in that pen and wait for it to shit, and the first square it shits in wins. Sometimes you put in multiple chickens or cows for contests with more than one prize. Typically the prize is something like a rifle, a years supply of beef, or once a ice shack. I see one every year at the big pheasant opener town feed. We all get together after a long day of shooting birds to eat pulled pork and gamble on bird shit for guns. It doesn't count as a raffle mostly because I assume judges think it's too silly to really consider. Some people treat it like it has a serious strategic element.

The country really is a weird place.

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Ha! I remember those from when I was a kid. But I haven't seen anyone hold one in years. Of course, I don't go home that often anymore, they might still do it.

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An example that's probably a bit more relevant to Curiosity is TV game shows. At least in Australia, contestants sign a contract that states that they won't see any winnings until the episode airs. Which screwed over a lot of people in the early 2000s when they pre-recorded 10 episodes of a gameshow and cancelled it after three, then told the winners to get stuffed.

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Small towns, bars and whatnot will sometimes hold chicken or cow shit raffles to avoid the law that says only charities can hold raffles (I don't know if that's everywhere in the US or just here). Basically what you do is mark out a grid space on a field or pen, number each grid space and sell each space for $5-15 or so. Then you put a cow or chicken in that pen and wait for it to shit, and the first square it shits in wins. Sometimes you put in multiple chickens or cows for contests with more than one prize. Typically the prize is something like a rifle, a years supply of beef, or once a ice shack. I see one every year at the big pheasant opener town feed. We all get together after a long day of shooting birds to eat pulled pork and gamble on bird shit for guns. It doesn't count as a raffle mostly because I assume judges think it's too silly to really consider. Some people treat it like it has a serious strategic element.

This is the best story in this thread.

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